CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 7, 2012 Marsh & McLennan Mark Weil has joined the insurance broker and risk adviser as chief executive. He will oversee Marsh’s UK and Ireland operations. Weil graduated from the University of Cambridge with an engineering degree and has 15 years of consulting experience with Marsh’s sister company Oliver Wyman. Eruma Nicolas Marks has joined the specialist [...]
BEST of the BROKERS June 7, 2012 HALFORDS UBS has upgraded the DIY retailer from “sell” to “neutral” but has trimmed its target price from 260p to 240p. The broker has lowered its 2013 forecasts after a grim outlook took the shine off Halfords’ recent results, but believes cost cutting measures will cushion the firm from further earnings downgrades. UBS sees some [...]
FTSE jumps as Chinese rate cut and UK services stats hearten traders June 7, 2012 BRITAIN’S top shares hit a three-week high yesterday as China’s surprise move to cut interest rates and firm UK services sector data boosted investors’ appetite for risk, although charts signalled strong resistance on the way up. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s comments that her country stood ready to use the existing instruments already created in the [...]
Investors find no sign of QE3 from Bernanke June 7, 2012 THE S&P 500 ended barely changed yesterday as optimism about China’s interest-rate cut was offset by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s comments that dimmed hopes for more US stimulus. Both the Dow industrials and the Nasdaq ended off session highs, with the Dow rising modestly for the day and the Nasdaq slipping. Stocks lost ground [...]
The subprime mortgage crisis isn’t over – UK taxpayers remain liable June 7, 2012 THE subprime mortgage crisis isn’t over. On the back of misguided government policies, taxpayers in the US and UK remain on the hook for huge sums. The ideology of affordable housing must end. It took just 13 years to destroy the American mortgage market with devastating effects for the rest of the world. The process began [...]
London’s contemporary design lustre is a reflection of its inspiring heritage June 7, 2012 THE Barbican’s new Bauhaus exhibition is full of ghosts. These early twentieth-century disciples of modernism are renowned for furniture as coolly perfect as an equation, but it is the human messiness of achievement that haunts every room. A chair that takes the breath away is posed between half-finished student exercises, invitations to parties and dozens [...]
My proposal for a referendum on Europe’s future June 7, 2012 IF THE German people are persuaded by their politicians to continue funding the Eurozone, based on much greater integration, many existing EU member states will swallow concerns about undue austerity. But the UK will have a choice to make. Britain must not remain passive any longer – this is our EU by treaty. It is [...]
Should we be trusting of social networking companies to protect our online privacy? June 7, 2012 YES Sam Bowman Like all firms, social networks can only succeed by giving customers what they want. If people want privacy, the profit motive will give social networks a good incentive to offer it to them. LinkedIn’s security breach this week will probably provoke new innovations in security. Social networks have to constantly innovate and [...]
RAPID RESPONSES June 7, 2012 Wins-consin [Re: Wisconsin victory threatens Obama’s November prospects, yesterday] As Ewan Watt points out, Romney’s victory in Wisconsin moves him from being seen as a GOP one percenter to being a credible threat to Obama. Until now he has been seen by many Republican voters as “not Rick Santorum” or “not Newt Gingrich” and by [...]
The Innkeepers is a bog-standard horror outing but Woody Allen film fascinates June 7, 2012 FILM THE INNKEEPERS Cert 15 | By Natasha Culzac ** AN EMPTY, rustic, provincial hotel is the setting for Ti West’s latest indie horror flick, The Innkeepers. New England’s The Yankee Pedlar Inn, which is said to harbour paranormal forces in real life as well as fiction, is closing down – presumably customers grew tired [...]
